Indexes Dow Jones Industrial Average

Is Dow 10,000 a signal to individual investors that the water is fine? Is Main Street about to dive into this market?

The Dow crossed above 10,000 today for the first time in over a year.  The first time the Dow crossed the 5-digit market was back in March 1999.  See how the who's who in market cap leaders has changed since then.

Think this is the start of the new major bull market for the next generation? History suggests it's not.

Following my post earlier this week on the highest yielding stocks in the Dow, here is a deeper look at the dividends of the S&P 500.

Rail and intermodal company, CSX is scheduled to report after the bell today.  While it has beaten EPS expectations 3 of the past 4 quarters, it has missed revenue expectations in the past three quarters according to First Call data.  Before then, it beat revenue targets for 5 straight quarters.   

The markets are higher today, with the Dow reaching within 68 points of 10,000 in this morning's trading.  The Dow, which closed on Friday at a new high for 2009 at 9864.94 is currently trading near October 2008 levels, as it also managed to reach a new intraday peak for 2009 today at 9931.82.

Two and a half months away from the end of the year and the average dividend yield of the Dow 30 has continued to fall since the market lows.  See how the 30 companies in the Dow compare.

The Dow closed at a 52-week high on Friday and is now less than 200 points away from the psychologically important 10,000 level. What's the trade?

U.S. stocks posted their strongest weekly performance since mid-July, with all indexes rising nearly 4% or greater for the week. 

October arrived last week with the markets showing fall jitters; nevertheless, market watchers and investors hope that this October won’t bring a repeat of the extreme swings that the markets experienced one year ago.

The CDC announced today that healthcare workers in Tennessee and Indiana would be amongst the first to get swine flu vaccinations.  The outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus has sadly killed over 3,900 peope per a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on September 25th.  At the same time the race to battle the pandemic has propped up the shares of biotech companies that promise solutions.

All major U.S. Indexes declined 1.8% or more for the week, logging weekly losses for a 2-straight week. A pullback in Industrials, a worse than expected ISM Manufacturing September reading, and continued weakness in the U.S. jobs data also pushed the CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) up by 11.8% for the week.

The latest overall job loss numbers showed a loss of 263,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8%, the fewest losses since August last year but highest unemployment rate since mid-1983.  The August and July numbers were revised as well.  Here is a breakdown of where the job losses were as well as which sectors were adding jobs.

The third quarter has past and for investors seeking dividends, they can be glad.  Standard & Poor's said yesterday that third-quarter dividend increases this year were the worst on record. Dividend payments during the third quarter fell 44.8% from a year ago, with only 191 of about 7,000 public companies -tracked by S&P- increasing their payouts.

As David Faber reported, General Electric and Comcast are in talks to spin off GE's NBC Universal, parent of CNBC, into a new company that will be merged with the content assets of Comcast.  What might this deal be worth?  Start by looking at comparable valuations.